TOXICITY: The LD50 for caffeine is 192 mg/kg. That is about 113 cups of coffee for the average human. But you would likely die from the amount of water ingested from over 100 cups of coffee before you would die from the caffeine.

Inhibits hemodynamic effects of adenosine (the core of ATP) by preventing it from binding in the brain.

Very high blood pressure and mania can result when mixing coffee with phenylpropanolamine. (Acutrim, Dexatrim)

Coffee reduces blood levels of lithium.

Can interfere with oral contraceptives and post menopausal hormones.

PREPARATION OF MEDICINE: Preparation: Infused. Black.

DOSAGE: Dosage: 1-2 cups

COMBINATIONS:

• “Combines well with digitalis” [Esoterica – DO NOT try this at home!]

• Caffeine with aspirin in over-the-counter analgesics

• For arthritis black coffee is mixed with lime juice [Trinidad]

RANGE: Native to Ethiopia.

PROPAGATION & CULTIVATION:

RESEARCH:

• Coffee appears to have an inverse correlation with Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, diabetes mellitus, and some cancers. It also helps in cognitive functioning. On the down side, it can raise serum cholesterol. [Butt2011, Eskelinen 2010, Chu 2012]

Nature’s bribe?Honeybees rewarded with caffeine (which occurs naturally in coffee and citrus flowers) are three times as likely to remember a learned scent as honeybees rewarded with sucrose alone. [Wright 2013]

• Wake up and smell the coffee! A University of California study reports that the steam rising from a cup of coffee has the same amount of antioxidants as three oranges.

LEGENDS OF THE DISCOVERY OF COFFEE:

•Middle Eastern shepherds noticed that when their sheep ate the berries both the sheep and the shepherd were up all night.

• In 1258 Sheik Omar was in exile and was complaining about his problems when a bird began singing in a tree. Trying to grab the bird, he instead ended up with a handful of berries and flowers. He then proceeded to make a “perfumed drink” from the berries and felt much better.

• An Islamic monk was vexed by his inability to stay awake during his prayers. One day he saw a goat herd dancing with his goats and was told that the goat herd’s happiness was caused by a specific bean. He was convinced that Mohammed had sent him this herb as a gift to keep him awake. The monastery was thereafter called the home of the “Wakeful Monks”, as they would drink coffee as they prayed. (A similar legend exists in China regarding tea.)

NOTES:

• The commercialization of coffee is an environmental nightmare. The coffee industry is rife with stories of worker abuse and serious health impacts on those preparing the beans. If you drink coffee, please purchase only fair trade organic brands and encourage others, including large corporations, to follow suit.

• Coffee and chocolate (those twin guilt-marinated New-Age bogeymen) are to many of people what sex was to the Victorians… vices that are publicly reviled while being craved and lusted-after behind closed doors. Both have now been shown to have strong anti-oxidant properties. The antioxidants in coffee are heterocyclic compounds which may prevent heart disease and cancer, while other ingredients may increase these risks.

• Caffeine is injected with sodium benzoate for poisoning or respiratory failure

• Coffee is second only to oil as a world commodity and is the most popular beverage worldwide with over 400 billion cups consumed each year. In the last three centuries, 90% of all people living in the Western world have switched from tea to coffee.

• Coffee is used as a stimulant, used to ward off coma in narcotic overdose and snake bite. In acute cases administered as an enema. (As if a coma wasn’t enough of an indignity.)

• The caffeine in coffee beans is bound to an organic acid and requires roasting to become active, but dark roasted coffee (unlike tea) has less caffeine than the lighter brews.

• Coffee can be burned as a room deodorizer

• October 1st is Coffee Day in Japan.

• African warriors would mix mashed coffee berries with animal fat, roll them into balls, and eat them before battle.

• In Bolivia, the bark is used to make a coffee substitute called Sultana.

• Brazil is the world’s largest producer of coffee. All of Latin America’s coffee industry emerged from one tree in a Dutch botanical garden.

• In Jamaica, the rats often chew the fruit off of the coffee berry. The kernels fall to the ground and are gathered to make a brew called “rat coffee”.

• In Sumatra coffee leaves are dried on of bamboo strips over a fire, then powdered and infused. Coffee leaves are reputed to have as much caffeine as the beans.

• In Turkey the inability of a man to give his wife enough coffee is considered grounds for divorce. (no pun intended)

• The name Coffee comes from Caffa, an Abyssinian province.

• By the 1400s Mecca had several coffee houses.

• Most Arab coffee was shipped through a port called Mocha. Arabs were forbidden to export the plant but in the 1600s the Dutch smuggled out some coffee starts to the island of Java. This was presumably the first “cup of java”. In 1652 the first Coffee shop was opened in London

• After hearing that coffee was “the Devil’s potion”, Pope Clement VIII tried a cup and declared it to be “so delicious that it would be a pity to allow the Muslim infidels to have exclusive use of it.” He then baptized the coffee to make it a Christian beverage. Even Martin Luther agreed with this. About the same time J.S. Bach wrote his Coffee Concerto.

• Coffee was brought to Hawai’i by Don Marin in 1813 or by a “Frenchman” to Manoa Valley in 1823, depending on who you ask.

AND FINALLY, FOR THOSE WHO CANNOT SLEEP… A FEW QUOTES:

• From the 19th century Eclectic Physicians: “Coffee, in strong infusion, without cream or sugar, is one of the first agents to be thought of in opium narcosis… and electricity, and particularly flagellation, resorted to….” – – King’s American Dispensatory (Doctors after my own heart)

• A morning without coffee is like sleep. – – Graffitti

• Far beyond all other pleasures, rarer than jewels or treasures, sweeter than grape from the vine. Yes! Yes! Greatest of pleasures! Coffee, coffee, how I love its flavor, and if you would win my favor, yes! Yes! Let me have coffee, let me have my coffee strong! – – Johan Sebastian Bach

• Coffee! Thou dost dispel all care, thou are the object of desire to the scholar. This is the beverage of the friends of God. – – In Praise of Coffee,” Arabic poem (1511)

• He that would drink it for livelinesse sake, and to discusse slothfulnesse, and the other properties that we have mentioned, let him use much sweat meates with it, and oyle of pistaccioes, and butter. Some drink it with milk, but it is an error, and such as may bring in the danger of leprosy. – – Old Arab Text

• Coffee should be black as hell, strong as death, and as sweet as love. – – Turkish Proverb